Nintendo’s Amiibo Marketing is a Mess

Nintendo’s line of mini figure toys has been a gigantic hit with fans; probably more than the company even expected. Many characters have been hard to find, sold out and even bought online for thousands of dollars. If you’ve visited retail locations looking to purchase or just peruse the Amiibo selection, however, you may have encountered an unsightly mess. Not all the Amiibos that have been scattered around the display and thrown all over the floor, but instead the poster being used to advertise the figures.

With the second wave of figures making it to store shelves, we want you to take a look at this. It’s a graphic designers worst nightmare and will haunt them for years to come:

Notice how inconsistent the artwork is? Fox McCloud has gone through quite the makeover since his SNES days. He’s in Smash Bros. for Wii U, but he definitely looks like he just came from the GameCube. It’s like the designer of this display went back in time to 2002 just to get a good shot of Fox. The actual Amiibo figure for Fox doesn’t even look like that. He’s got much more detail and even a different set of clothes nowadays.

Look below at the Hero of Time, Link. He’s always been cool, but Twilight Princess artwork? Are they serious? The Wii U and 3DS versions of Smash Bros. are designed to show off the 3D graphics Nintendo has been working on for years. The Amiibo figures are three dimensional for a reason and why they used Link from Twilight Princess is mind-boggling. There’s no correlation to Twilight Princess when he hasn’t looked like that for a few years. Even if they hadn’t come up with a new look, they could have just made him look like he would fit in with the rest. Make him look like he does in Smash Bros. since that’s what Amiibos are used for. They’re even posed the same as the character select screen in Smash Bros.

But enough about them. Let’s move on to Toad. He just starred in his own adorable game, so where’s his Amiibo? He’s not slated for one, yet he’s on the poster. If it’s to promote the Captain Toad game, that’s one thing, but having Amiibo all over the place doesn’t help this poster in any way. Same with putting Animal Crossing’s Tom Nook on there. He’s not been on the Wii U yet unless you count Villager’s Final Smash. Is he representing the series since Villager has an Amiibo figure? It doesn’t make any sense.

How could Nintendo have possibly approved of the poster display? The art style varies too much and it seems like random characters are just thrown on there. It’s likely this poster will have no affect on the sales or popularity of the Amiibo figures; they’re far too big a deal to be hindered. It’s just the principle idea of using this — it’s practically false advertising.